GEODESIC

Two lists. They are not the same list.

One is the peer-reviewed record behind the method, fifty years of it, under its own name. The other is what we have not established about our own commercial application of it.

Published science is not a hit rate. Keeping the two apart is the point, because a long bibliography can make an open question look answered.

The published record

Sociology, communication research, and the mathematics underneath both. Most of it is scholarly rather than commercial, which is the reason it can be checked at all.

Foundations

  1. Woelfel, J., and A. O. Haller. “Significant Others, the Self-Reflexive Act and the Attitude Formation Process.” American Sociological Review 36, no. 1 (1971): 74–87. PDF
  2. Haller, A. O., and J. Woelfel. “Significant Others and Their Expectations: Concepts and Instruments to Measure Interpersonal Influence on Status Aspirations.” Rural Sociology 37, no. 4 (1972): 591–622. PDF
  3. Saltiel, J., and J. Woelfel. “Inertia in Cognitive Processes: The Role of Accumulated Information in Attitude Change.” Human Communication Research 1, no. 4 (1975): 333–344.
  4. Woelfel, J., and E. L. Fink. The Measurement of Communication Processes: Galileo Theory and Method. New York: Academic Press, 1980. 278 pp. Library record
  5. Woelfel, J., R. A. Holmes, and D. L. Kincaid. How to Do a Galileo Study. Albany, NY: Good Books, 1980.

The mathematics

  1. Woelfel, J., and G. A. Barnett. “Multidimensional Scaling in Riemann Space.” Quality and Quantity 16 (1982): 461–491.
  2. Woelfel, J., D. L. Kincaid, B. Newton, and J. Lee. “The Effect of Compound Messages on the Global Characteristics of Galileo Spaces.” Quality and Quantity 20 (1986): 133–145.
  3. Woelfel, J., and C. Evans. “Galileo and Multidimensional Scaling.” PDF
  4. Woelfel, J. Multivariate Analysis as Spatial Representations of Distances. Amherst, NY: RAH Press, 2009.

Tests and applications

  1. Danes, J. E., J. E. Hunter, and J. Woelfel. “Mass Communication and Belief Change: A Test of Three Mathematical Models.” Human Communication Research 4, no. 3 (1978): 243–252. PDF
  2. Kincaid, D. L., J. O. Yum, J. Woelfel, and G. A. Barnett. “The Cultural Convergence of Korean Immigrants in Hawaii: An Empirical Test of a Mathematical Theory.” Quality and Quantity. Publisher
  3. Dinauer, L. D., and E. L. Fink. “Inter-Attitude Structure and Attitude Dynamics: A Comparison of the Hierarchical and Galileo Spatial-Linkage Models.” Human Communication Research 31 (2005): 1–32. PDF
  4. Barnett, G. A., and J. Woelfel, eds. Readings in the Galileo System: Theory, Methods and Applications. Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt, 1988.
  5. Woelfel, J., and N. J. Stoyanoff. Artificial Neural Networks for Advertising and Marketing Research. Amherst, NY: RAH Press, 1995.

Independent review

  1. Larson, E. V., R. E. Darilek, D. Gibran, B. Nichiporuk, A. Richardson, L. H. Schwartz, and C. Q. Thurston. Foundations of Effective Influence Operations: A Framework for Enhancing Army Capabilities. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, MG-654-A, 2009. Sponsored by the United States Army, conducted by RAND Arroyo Center. Galileo is among the methods reviewed, and its author was consulted directly for the study. RAND
  2. Woelfel, J. “Significant Others.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by G. Ritzer. Publisher

A fuller archive is maintained at the Galileo literature database. Entries without a link above are in print rather than online; we do not host copies of anything.

What we have not established

None of the above tells you whether our commercial application of this method predicts what a client cares about. That is a separate question and we have not answered it.

Measured

Position and distance. True by construction of how the data is collected, not a claim about our skill.

Held out

Concept results, checked against data the model was not shown.

Still open

No published hit rate against realised commercial outcomes. Two-analyst reliability has not been run. Until it is, this is a method with a mathematical apparatus behind it rather than an instrument, and we will not call it objective.

What breaks it

Ask the wrong objects and you recover a clean space answering a question nobody cares about. The geometry solves whatever it is handed. That judgment is the part a person does.

Every finding carries its evidence.

Not a disclaimer at the end of a report. A mark beside the line it applies to, so the weak ones are as visible as the strong ones. When something we said turns out to be wrong, it goes on this page too.

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